


Imaginary Friend

by amuk



Category: Loveless
Genre: Brotherhood, Brothers, Community: 31_days, Family, Fear, Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:05:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Ritsuka fears that Seimei is someone he imagined, that he wasn't real. That this warmth and comfort was something he made up to protect himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginary Friend

**Author's Note:**

> So, yes, I used this prompt twice, but both Loveless stories fit it so well I just couldn't resist...
> 
> Prompt: June 6 // he isn't just something he's imagining

There is something Ritsuka fears, something he doesn't tell anyone, not even Soubi. At night, when his mother is pacing just outside his door, he lies awake with this fear. It runs through his body like an electric current, red hot and wild, and sometimes he just can't stop it from consuming him.

 

Seimei might not be real. Might not have lived. Might not have talked and laughed and comforted Ritsuka when he needed it most.  By now, Ritsuka knows well enough that memories might not be actual memories, that they can be forgotten and created and changed.

 

And Seimei, beautiful, brilliant, kind Seimei, he might just be another memory like that. Someone Ritsuka invented to comfort himself when his mother tries to kill him, because this Ritsuka isn't her Ritsuka.

 

This boy without memories, without a name or identity, has no place in her world.

 

So Ritsuka, in a moment of despair, might have invented this brother. This man with strong arms and warm skin and black, black, black ears.  This man who tells him, "It's ok, Ritsuka. I love you, you're my brother. I need you. Don't worry about her."

 

This man who gives lost, misplaced Ritsuka a place in the world.

 

Something in him breaks with that fear. That death might not be a real death, just one that he imagined when Seimei was no longer enough to save him from his mother. When no words or actions could stop her in her rage.

 

So when Seimei disappears,  the glass showering Ritsuka with little cuts and bruises, he doesn't mind the parting words or the doubt thrown in the way.

 

Seimei existed. There was someone who cared.


End file.
